The Evangelical Universalist Forum

When Love Itself Becomes a god it Becomes Demonic - C.S. Lewis

When love itself becomes a god, it becomes demonic - C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Lewis points out in “The Four Loves” that although God is love , not all love is God . He says that if any type of love became a god , it would, in fact, become a demon.

It was of erotic love that the Roman poet said, “I love and hate,” but other kinds of love admit the same mixture. They carry in them the seeds of hatred. If Affection is made the absolute sovereign of a human life the seeds will germinate. Love, having become a god, becomes a demon. ~~ C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Jesus was Holy not mere human love. His love is a holy love. He is light (holiness). Light is His essence. Holiness. Jesus was an outcast, instigator of conflict, disrupter of unity. A violent Jesus who resolutely makes a whip to forcefully drive moneychangers (bankers) out of the Temple, over-turning their tables (John 3:15). Before, his disciples went out without a money belt, bag or sandals, and lacked nothing. But now, they are to bring a money belt and bag; and if they lack a sword, they are to “sell their cloak and purchase one” (Luke 22:35-36). Jesus the so-called pacifist instructing his followers to buy a sword? It would be as if today he advised purchasing a gun. This Jesus warns his disciples that he did not come to bring peace to earth, but division (Luke 12:51). Not peace, but a sword. Because of him, son will turn against father, daughter against mother, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law. Even a person’s enemy will be a member of one’s own household (Matt. 10:34-36).

To quote Robin Parry in “Four Views on Hell”:

His love is a holy love, and holy love is not soppy, fuzzy love, but a persevering love that cannot be compromised. God’s love can even manifest at times as a severe mercy. "His is a love of cauterizing holiness and of a righteousness whose only response to evil is the purity of a perfect hatred. ~~ page 113

This is one reason I hold to the orthodox universalism of Robin Parry as outlined in “Four Views of Hell”. He doesn’t blaspheme the Holy. He holds to both OT and NT. God is light (holiness) as well as love. Therefore, God’s love is a holy love as Parry explains in the above quote from “Four Views of Hell”. Holiness when applied to God refers to everything that separates Him from His creatures and creation. It refers to moral purity but isn’t limited to it. God’s love is no mere human love. There are ways we are like God and ways we are not. For example:

God is infinite in wisdom and knowledge and sees all events, past present future

God is all knowing

God is all-powerful

God is self sufficient

God is omnipresent

God is sovereign over the universe

We are none of these things. All God’s attributes are holy. His justice is a holy justice. His wisdom a holy wisdom, His love a holy love. Jesus and the Father are one. Therefore the Holy God of the OT is the same as the Christ of the NT. God’s essence is Holiness. He is

Infinitude

Immensity

Justice

Mercy

Grace

Omnipresence

Perfection

Self-Existence

Transcendence

Eternalness

Immutability

Wisdom

Sovereignty

Faithfulness

Love

Those of EU forum have made love into a god like C.S. Lewis states. This is demonic. They call the Holy God of the Bible unjust and less moral than their intuitions of human love.

The name of the book, “The Idea of the Holy: an inquiry into the non-rational factor in the idea of the divine and its relation to the rational” is just that: the book is what the name is. As for its content, the holy is what Rudolf Otto calls “the numinous” (from omen and ominous, thus numen and numinous). The numinous is above and beyond the meaning of goodness, a mental state perfectly sui generis and irreducible to any other and can be defined but cannot be discussed but it can be awakened in the spirit.

From the book, Chapter 2, pp. 5 and 6:

Holiness - the holy - is a category of interpretation and valuation peculiar to the sphere of religion. It is, indeed, applied by transference to another sphere - that of ethics - but it is not itself derived from this. While it is complex, it contains quite a different element or ‘moment’, which sets it apart from ‘the Rational’ in the meaning we gave to that word above, and which remains inexpressible - an ineffable - in the sense that it completely eludes apprehension in terms of concepts.

The fact is we have come to use the words holy, sacred in an entirely derivative sense, quite different from that which they ordinarily bore. We generally take ‘holy’ as meaning ‘completely good’; it is the absolute moral attribute, denoting the consummation of moral goodness. But this common usage of the term is inaccurate. It is true that all this moral significance is contained in the word ‘holy’ but it includes in addition - as even we cannot but feel - a clear overplus of meaning, and later or acquired meaning; rather ‘holy’, or at least the equivalent words in Latin and Greek, in Semitic and other ancient languages, denoted first and foremost only this overplus: If the ethical element was present at all, at any rate it was not original and never constituted the whole meaning of the word.

But this ‘holy’ then represents the gradual shaping and filling in with ethical meaning, or what we shall call the ‘schematization’, of what was a unique original feeling response, which can be in itself ethically neutral and claims consideration in its own right. And when this moment or element first emerges and begins its long development, all those long expressions mean beyond all question something quite other than ‘the good’. This is universally agreed upon by contemporary criticism…Accordingly, it is worth while, as we have said, to find a word to stand for this element in isolation, this ‘extra’ in the meaning of ‘holy’ above and beyond the meaning of goodness.

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There are many different types of love and hate in the Bible. Ecclesiastes 3 tells us there is a time to love and a time to hate. Jesus tells us to love our enemies. While some of the psalms express hate towards God’s enemies. Can we love and hate at the same time? If love is the disposition to seek the good of someone else and hate is opposition to the values and plans of someone then it is possible to both love and hate the same person. I can hate someone like Adolf Hitler for example in the sense of opposing his plans and being disgusted by his character and actions, while at the same time desiring his conversion or change of heart. Thus, I can both love and hate Hitler at the same time. I don’t think Jesus wants us to merely hate someone like Hitler. For He tells us to love everyone including our enemies. He speaks against pure hatred by telling us to love.

Hate comes in different degrees and intensity in the Bible in different contexts. Sometimes it simply means “love less” other times it’s stronger in the sense of abhor. We see this where the Bible speaks of God hating sin and sinners:

There are six things the Lord hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
a false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up conflict in the community - Proverbs 6:16-19

It’s not only the sins God hates but also those who do them. The Bible also says God is love. It doesn’t say He is ONLY love but He is love. If love is the disposition to seek the good of someone else and hate is opposition to the values and plans of someone then it is possible to both love and hate the same person. God can hate Adolf Hitler in the sense of opposing his plans and being disgusted by his character and actions, while at the same time desiring his conversion. Thus He can love and hate Adolf Hitler at the same time.

The hero has to be a monster. But a controlled monster. Batman was like that. If your harmless you’re not virtuous. ~~ Psychologist Jordan Peterson

You cannot be a good person until you know how much evil you contain within you. ~~ Jordan Peterson

Humility by Jonathan Edwards

Humility may be defined to be a habit of mind and heart
corresponding to our comparative unworthiness and vileness
before God; or a sense of our own comparative lowness in His
sight, with the disposition to a behavior answerable thereto.

A truly humble man is sensible of the small extent of his
knowledge, and the great extent of his ignorance, and of the
small extent of his understanding, as compared with the
understanding of God.

He is sensible of his weakness, how little his strength is,
and how little he is able to do.

He is sensible of his natural distance from God,
of his dependence on Him,
of the insufficiency of his own power and wisdom;
and that it is by God’s power that he is upheld and provided for;
and that he needs God’s wisdom to lead and guide him,
and His might to enable him to do what he ought to do for Him.

Humility tends to prevent an aspiring and
ambitious behavior among men.

The man that is under the influence of a humble spirit is content
with such a situation among men, as God is pleased to allot to
him, and is not greedy of honor, and does not affect to appear
uppermost and exalted above his neighbors.

Humility tends also to prevent an arrogant and assuming behavior.

On the contrary, humility, disposes a person to a condescending
behavior to the meekest and lowest, and to treat inferiors with
courtesy and affability, as being sensible of his own weakness
and despicableness before God.

If we then consider ourselves as the followers of the meek
and lowly and crucified Jesus, we shall walk humbly before
God and man all the days of our life on earth.

Let all be exhorted earnestly to seek much of a humble spirit, and
to endeavor to be humble in all their behavior toward God and men.

Seek for a deep and abiding sense of your
comparative lowness before God and man.

Know God.

Confess your nothingness and ill-desert before Him.

Distrust yourself.

Rely Only On God.

Renounce all glory except for Him.

Yield yourself heartily to His will and service.

Avoid an aspiring, ambitious, ostentatious, assuming, arrogant,
scornful, stubborn, willful, leveling, self-justifying behavior;
and strive for more and more of the humble spirit that Christ
manifested while He was on earth.

Humility is a most essential and distinguishing trait
in all true piety.

Earnestly seek then; and diligently and prayerfully
cherish a humble spirit, and God shall walk with
you here below; and when a few more days shall have
passed, He will receive you to the honors
bestowed on His people at Christ’s right hand.